THE ANNIVERSARY OF WATERLOO.

New Zealand Herald, Volume I, Issue 250, 31 August 1864, Page 6

THE ANNIVERSARY OF WATERLOO.

[From the " Daily Telegraph," June 18, 1864.] Amjtju:r anniversary bus come round of that battleiliiy when tho two gieatest nations of modem times hurled. iig;.inst eiieh other squadrons of horse and coliunris of intar.try, and turned the green Belgian coin-fields red v.'itli livers of generous blood. The grey head round -which tho survivors of Waterloo ut( d to assemble yi arly to celebrate this victory, is in tho giave, and tlieie can ho hut very few lefi behind the " Duke" of the combatants oil either side. Here and there, indeed, in England ail old nian— oflicer or pensioner—croons over his recollections of tho field ; and in Pan's a handful of battered and decrepit veterans at tho Ir.valides—ricux moustaches of jN'ey and Kellennan—sit intlie sunshine, and feebly potter over their thin wine about "tho Little Corporal." But fifty years have done their usual work ; tho tight is Jess and less remembered ; and if pride on one side and vengeance on the other had not been inheiited from our grandfathers, France and

I'ngland might have the blessed privilege of forgetting Waterloo for ever. Wo wish sincerely that we could assist towaids such a consummation; for, ghmiing over Europe, the question inevitably arises,

" For what good was Waterloo tought r" It hurled, indeed, tioin his insolent dominion over Franco and the Continent, a man who was tho modern Attila, and whose vast ambition must have been fatal either to tho world or to himself. It furnished history with that sublimo cartoon of Imperial justice done upon

Imperial ciimc—tho lonely figure upon the lonely rock—Napoleon at St. Helena. We will not cull the victor}' vain, tlierefoie, or the blood which it cost wasted, looking tack to tho unmeasured ambition wlifn; caitir is ended there. Put if to depose the Cuisuan was only possible at the price of lavish tieasure and blood poured out like water in I£l6, let us at least cea.'e to add to it tho it<m of ill-will

between England and Fiance in lhli-l. On this anniversary wc tell tho Punch people that wo no longer exult in Waterloo. Its woik being done, wc would to God its locollection could also bo dismissed, for the davs arc pone when any prool'is needed that tbe l'jiglish «nd tho French aie brave —" ca i n sans dire"—and the hrag on one side and the soreness on the other keep up a comparison of courage totally unneeosfniy. In tlie intra est s of humanity the ai mies of l'Vance and England should never meet— should never Lave met; 310 cause of quarrel can recompense the world for a stiugglo between two noble nations eallcd into history and situated by geography to act together for mankind. Such contests, whenever they occur, arc like Taxcmed's iiglit in Takso's ".Jerusalem Delivered;" wo may conquer, but when wo draw tho visor aside from the fallen face of an enemy, it is Clorinda—it is our friend, and not a foe, who bleeds. " Ahi vista ahi conosccitza —we have smitten down what we loved. Once more then, we ask, what has Waterloo done for Europe, except the one great work of dragging from his minacious eminence the first Jin j olcon. Bas it given peace to the Continent? — (here have been two great wars already, and another iui) ends. lias it benefited the nations of Europe ? —they have hardly struggled from under the incubus of one Holy Alliance when another is being plotted. Let Prance and England look back together, then, while peace still lingers upon this anniversary, and conipiehend Waterloo.

l'-ngland fought that famous campaign against Napoleon Bonaparte ; the Continental I'owers, her

allies, iotighf if against tho Rationalities. In that sentence, justly apprehended, is contained light enough to understand nil the past and the present. England saw in the first I> apolt on a man wliOsC devouring ambition aimed at actual dictatorship in iuiropi — a man who knew France inspired with two passions, the love of liberty and the love of glory, and dexterously ted the last till the first was dead. If Napoleon had befn frank, ana England had possessed

a sagacious Ministiv, our true policy at the beginning of i lie ecu tuiy would hare been to accept him as the icpresentulh e of France ill propagating Liberal Governments all over Europe. Sharing or adopting his v. oik thus, we should have lessened its perilous prestige; it would ha\o been accomplished— it would lmve lasted—and 18G1 would not be renewing the old dangers, the old difficulties. The personal eriors of and his adroit corruption of Fiance, put that policy out of the qucsiion for such heads as then governed us, and they were compelled to pull him down. But in the fallen conqueror, while Englishmen saw only a bad king punished. Continental cabinets saw a great deal more. They saw and r'joiceel at the downlnll of one who hud betn called " the fcword of the Democracy"—the hated representative and fiuit of the French Revolution—the man who had kicked crowns from anointed heads, and tossed them to his generals—the man who, against all doctrines of infallibility and oil ofunotion, stripped the l'ope of his temporalities, drove theßourboiio frcin Naples, made 1 uscany, Modena, I'arma, and Lucca indipi l.dcnt of anybody but himself, and at home abolished feudalism, ihe old noblesse, and litlics. Jio when Napoleon lull tho pint of the Holy .Alliance was concluded by Ihe Houses against- the nation ; Fiance was to be kept down ; Frame, and her restless love of human liccdom, was to be cribbed and eoi'.lliud ; the s!an was leii to us and to >st. Helena, the was chastised and cursed. Let I'iaiue recollect to-day that v.e took no jKiit j n that conspiracy against her, further than to provide that the dangerous weakness which gave sucli an one his puwer should not be tempted again. France has a a vice that acts like a. virtue—her tree spii it. and her intense sell-worship. For libeitv at home and abroad she will, at j eiiodical impulses, give all she has ; lor"gloiy" she will give herself into the l.aigain. It is tho last gallant infirmity that makes her dangeious to herself and the world, and we did tiv to guard her against another Napoleon by tho tieaties of 181-1. 11l the seen t compact, however, we took no j art. "We stood aloof ironi it ; wo denounced it in LSI!), and proclaimed non-intervention ; we looked on with shame when Spain and Portugal were repressed, and when Belgium broke from Holland, in defiance of Vienna, with approval. If France broods over "Waterloo, thcieforo, and talks yet of "revenge," she must letch back Napoleon Bonaparte from tho grave: the only enemy we could remember in the portentous conflict of 181.5 was that man ; the em inies of France were tho Continental sovereigns win.se tl.ior.es were menaced by her flee and fearless genius.

How stand the two nations, then, to each other on the forty-ninth anniversary of that day v.-hen thoy mfct a! Wamlco? Diileioutly, thank God, although siinili.rly. There is, on the one hand, another Napoleon iji l'aris, chosen in defiance of the Coalition that pulicd down tlio first, and once again master of France, as the uncle was. Once again Franco, to gratify her ovo of glory, has waived her love of lreedoni, and has accepted prcsdyc in Furopc as tlie equivalent of constitutional rights at home. Onco attain the Third Napoleon, like the First, is the representative in Furopc of those principles that are lata: to Holy Alliances ; and once again a Holy Alliance is plotted against those principles. Does the parallel go imlher : It does; for, as iho Corsic.an interwove his own ambitions with ihe national vanity of France, so thu son of Jiorten.su Beauharnais has punished Austria and Kussia.— two of the three Holy Allies—in war, and fights in and CochinChina to please Franco, and thereby establish his dynasty. What is altered, then, in the complexion of ail.nils,since Fiance stiirsYiboidinateshc~r genius to her vanity r National aspirations in Kurope are unsatislied now, as in 1816, and the -koyal Houses still regard the Continent as their private fief, to be mapped out and allotted at Ivissingen or Carlsbad. "We aHi rni that there aro two great (liil'erences, however, one ill Fngland, and one in France. In France, the Fmperor,.. though in the same position as his undo, is of another mind ; ho comprehends that " universal domination," " tutelary tiupremaey," for his realm is a dream ; and, though Prussia remains to be punished lor 1815, he is too wise, and, we will add, too just, to extend the debt of that revenge to Hnglaitd. He has been true to history and his own interest, in being true to the Knglish alliance. AVe, on our side, are litty years elder in policy, and. shall never again crush a new European spirit to crush a man. In any coming war our side can never be against I'oland, Hungary, Italy, and Denmark: the Koyal Houses will have no new Waterloo waged for them by us—no enormous subsidies voted to help a Holy Alliance; the Fmperor of France will never force us to that "cross purpose," and the people here will never accept it. That France should have laid her heart once more in the hands of a. Napoleon wo may regret, but that he is prudent we may rejoice. It takes away the peril of renewing that dreadful spectacle for humanity, a contest between Kn"land and her natund ally. Had we to do, indeed, with the Franch instead of with the Tuileries, the future would be clearer still; but treaties of commerce, and I rocial interest ever increasing, have cleared the air of I the smoke ot the 18th cf dune; so that upon this dav, its anniversary, and in prospect of another general war, we can stretch our hands across the Channel, < and wish that, if Waterloo is to he avenged, it may he with English and French interests aide by side. | ;